The Benham brothers have issued a statement concerning the cancellation of their show by HGTV.

HGTV has joined the line of corporations and other enterprises which is limiting employment according to the dictates of the politically correct police. There is a tendency to label the people on the two sides of this debate as either “liberal” or “conservative” or, sometimes, as “right-wing” or “left-wing.” But in truth, these liberals are no more liberals than today’s neo-cons are conservatives.

It would be far better to use correct language to talk about them. The extreme sides of the political divide are both totalitarian liars and bullies. They are both, each in their own way, the enemies of human freedom and human dignity. They have a lot more in common with one another than they do with the rest of us.

However, the Benham brothers, who were fired for holding political and social viewpoints that run afoul of the received wisdom of a group called “Right Wing Watch,” have reacted to the situation with courage, grace and a dignity of their own.

“The first and last thought on our minds as we begin and end each day is; have we shined Christ’s light today? Our faith is the fundamental calling in our lives, and the centerpiece of who we are. As Christians we are called to love our fellow man. Anyone who suggests that we hate homosexuals or people of other faiths is either misinformed or lying. Over the last decade, we’ve sold thousands of homes with the guiding principle of producing value and breathing life into each family that has crossed our path, and we do not, nor will we ever discriminate against people who do not share our views.”

“We were saddened to hear HGTV’s decision. With all of the grotesque things that can be seen and heard on television today you would think there would be room for two twin brothers who are faithful to our families, committed to biblical principles, and dedicated professionals. If our faith costs us a television show then so be it.”

I am heartened by the Benham brother’s reaction to the unjust way in which they lost their job. McCarthyism is back and we have a new blacklist. It looks like this thing is just gathering steam. Christians in all walks of life may end up being blacklisted by the politically correct cops as time rolls forward.

For myself, I’ve now had a week with no HGTV. That’s a change for me. I’ve spent a lot of time, watching HGTV. It’s an easy channel to flip on when I have a few minutes and need to unwind. Because of the nature of its programming, I can enjoy it without committing a large block of time to it.

And, I am interested in homey stuff like what color to paint a wall.

In fact, one of my sons is going to paint a room in my house as my Mother’s Day present. So, I’ve been perusing paint colors online in my spare moments. I started out looking at Sherwin Williams. But, alas, they have a (very nice) selection of colors from HGTV.

I may be a Christian, but my money is still green. And I’m not going to spend any of my green stuff in places that partner up with HGTV. I did before. It didn’t bother me a bit that they had openly gay people doing design work. I wasn’t turned away by shows with gay couples buying houses for themselves. I don’t agree with gay marriage, but that doesn’t mean I have a hate on for gay people.

However, when HGTV gets a hate on for people like me, who don’t agree with gay marriage, my money is going someplace else.

I posted a video yesterday of First Lady Michelle Obama talking about the girls who were kidnapped by Boko Haram. The first lady also discussed the attacks on girls in a more general fashion.

A number of Public Catholic readers responded with knee-jerk denunciations of the first lady that sounded very much like anything-she’s-against-I’m-for. The really ugly — and flat-out shameful — comments are now sleeping in the delete file.

If Michelle Obama finds a cure for cancer, are Public Catholic readers going to come out in favor of cancer?

It appears that if she speaks in support of hundreds of school girls who have been kidnapped, forced to convert to Islam and are being sold as slaves, then at least some Public Catholic readers will evince difficulty in supporting the girls alongside her. They will instead launch into divisive and rather ugly attacks on her and by doing that, come out, at least obliquely, in support of violence and atrocities against women.

Is there violence against men and boys, as well? Yes. But to suddenly start proclaiming that women and girls are not treated as second class citizens all over the globe and that they are not subjected to horrific violence is not only ridiculous, it is disgusting.

I’m going to put a video from the Vatican below in support of the kidnapped girls. Boko Haram has released another of their charming videos. It appears that they are now demanding some sort of prisoner exchange for the girls they haven’t already sold.

Pope Francis has spoken in favor of these girls and against their kidnapping. I realize that by posting a video from the Vatican, I will now have to start deleting the comments from people who hate Pope Francis as well as those who hate Michelle Obama.

Because, you see, there are those — all of whom feel they are not only faithful Catholics, but more more faithful in their Catholicism than the pope himself — who, if Pope Francis discovered a cure for cancer, would come out in favor of cancer.

This kind of thinking is not thinking at all. If someone you don’t like says something that is true, then they said something that is true. When you attack the truth, or in this case, the plain facts and reality itself, in order to discredit them, you don’t discredit them. You discredit yourself.

Do not be driven by your hatreds people. In fact, take a look at yourself and stop hating others because you disagree with them. Don’t let your ideologies drive out your capacity for compassion, fair play and common sense.

I’m too busy this week and for the next couple of weeks to write as much as I normally do. And I’m going to be tired, grumpy, irascible and mistake-prone. If I’ve said this too harshly, please remember that I respect and like Public Catholic’s readers. But don’t come on here and speak out, even obliquely, in support of the atrocities committed against women and girls because someone you disagree with politically said that these atrocities are wrong.

First Lady Michelle Obama made a public statement about the barbarous kidnapping of over 200 school girls by Boko Haram in Nigeria.

Mrs Obama broadened her discussion to talk about the war on girls, in particular the war on the education of girls, which is occurring in many parts of the world today. Cowardly men throw acid in little girl’s faces, maiming and disfiguring them for life are unfit to be called men.

A society in which bands of armed men abduct hundreds of girls from their school in order to use and sell them as sex slaves is unfit to cohabit with the civilized world.

Let it fill you with awe at the faith of our brothers and sisters in Christ. Consider the depth of faith and the power of the Holy Spirit to sustain them, even in this. Consider also the great trust God has given them and how fully they lived up to that trust.

They are saints.

The Daily Mail broke a story, complete with graphic photos, of two men who were crucified by Syrian rebels. The rebels put signs on the men saying that they were crucified for using explosive devices against the rebels. It does not say if these men were Christians, but considering their crucifixions, that seems likely. This story has all the sex appeal any publication could want: Graphic photos, horrific suffering and rage-inducing injustice.

The bad guys, it seems are very bad indeed.

But there is another story that, as usual, is not being reported. Christians have been threatened with crucifixion and have been martyred at the hands of the Syrian rebels for refusing to deny Christ and convert to Islam for quite a while now. Mainstream news organizations don’t report this, even though it would be a ratings getter for them.

These reports make me even more certain that the American people did the right thing by opposing the plan to use Tomahawk missiles on Syria. If we had done that, it would have destroyed the remaining infrastructure and stability of the country and almost certainly have led to the rebel’s victory in this war.

Photo Source: News.Naij.com

The question of who is funding these rebels so that they can wage war against the nation of Syria is a serious one. That kind of money does not come from individual wealth. Even Bill Gates would find himself going broke if he was personally funding a war against an established government, especially a government that is being supported by another government, in this case, Russia.

I’ve read reports that the United States is funding these rebels. That makes a kind of sense. After all, (1) Not many nations have the spare cash to fund whole wars on the side, and (2) Why else would we have been so eager to launch Tomahawk missiles into Syria and thus help these rebels win?

I’m raising these political issues because they lead to a couple of important questions: (1) To what extent, if any, are our tax dollars, which come directly from the money we make by going to work every day, being used in support of the violent persecution of our brothers and sisters in Christ? (2) If we are funding the rebels, who is benefitting from it? It’s not the American people or the people of Syria.

Our brothers and sisters who die for Jesus are in heaven. They have joined the long line of martyrs for Christ that goes back to Stephen.

What would you do if someone who meant it and could do it told you Convert to Islam or you will be crucified like Christ?

Before you give a glib answer, think how hard it is for you to stand up for him against television networks and people on your job. Consider how often students in school convert to the trendy anti-Christian babble the teachers and the other students are peddling, not because they will be crucified, but because they will be shunned and made fun of?

When was the last time you denied Jesus by keeping silent when someone disparaged Him or made a cutting comment about Christians?

Now, answer again. What would you do if someone who meant it and who had the power over you to do it told you Convert to Islam or you will be crucified like Christ?

The people who refuse to deny Jesus in the face of persecution, torture, and certain death are His chosen ones. They are His saints. Their blood is the blood of martyrs.

Don’t let their passion, which is so much like His passion, provoke you to hatred and rage. Let it provoke you to awe and respect.

And action.

If our government is funding these rebels, we the people need to know why our government is allowing them to persecute Christians. We have the right, as citizens of this country to ask and be answered about this.

In the meantime, I intend to pray and ask these martyred ones to intercede for persecuted Christians, everywhere.

Sister Raghad, the former head of the Patriarchate School in Damascus who currently resides in France, told Vatican Radio how she personally witnessed jihadi rebels terrorize Ma‘loula, including by pressuring Christians to proclaim the shehada—Islam’s credo that there is no god but Allah and Muhammad is his messenger—which, when uttered before Muslim witnesses transforms the speaker into a Muslim, with the death penalty for apostasy should the convert later “renege” by returning to Christianity.

According to the nun, those Christians who refused to embrace Islam were

killed in atrocious and violent ways that cannot be described. If you want examples, they crucified two youths in Ma‘loula for refusing to proclaim Islam’s credo, saying to them: “Perhaps you want to die like your teacher [Christ] whom you believe in? You have two choices: either proclaim the shehada or else be crucified. One of them was crucified before his father, whom they also killed.”

It is, of course, a documented fact that some Christians in Ma‘loula were put to death for refusing to convert to Islam, such as Minas, an Armenian man, while other families succumbed to pressure and converted to Islam at the tip of the sword.

The Satanic Temple evidently plans to hold a black mass at the Harvard Extension Cultural Studies Club. That’s Harvard, as in the hugely expensive university where so many of the poobahs that run this country for their own benefit get their tickets to power punched.

I chose to ignore this story when it first surfaced because I had no idea if it was true, and I had zero time for tracking it down. But Elizabeth Scalia, aka, The Anchoress, who is easily as busy as I am, made the time to do just that.

It turns out that yes indeed, Harvard is playing host to the black mass folks, and at least one of them is claiming that they’ve managed to procure a consecrated host to use in their alternative culture extravaganza. Others of them aren’t so sure they have a host, and after thinking it over (and getting flak from The Anchoress) they’ve announced that, even though they have — or don’t have, depending on who’s doing the talking — a consecrated host, they won’t be using it (if they do have it) at their shindig.

Of course, Satan is the father of lies, and these are his disciples, so who knows if they have a consecrated host or not? Who knows if they’ll use it?

Deacon Greg Kandra reminds us that Harvard was once a Christian university, that it was, in fact, founded on Christian principles. But that, as they say, was then. This is now.

Academic pretensions aside, Harvard today is the premiere ticket-puncher for the power elite of this country. Go to Harvard, rule the unwashed masses. There’s nothing, but absolutely nothing, Christian about that.

So, it doesn’t surprise that in addition to worshipping power and mammon, they’re taking the mask off that deal and putting the guy behind the mask right out there in public where we can all see him.

What do I advocate in response to Harvard’s foray into cultural experimentation by way of satan worship and talk of maybe defiling what might be a consecrated host that is the Real Presence of Christ the Lord?

Just this: Don’t send your kids to Harvard. And write your senators and representatives about taking a good long look at all those government grants that get funneled into that one school.

We need to do this anyway, you know. Harvard and its little troupe of elite schools are not healthy for this country. They create a 1% that is disconnected from and hostile to the rest of us. They are, in many ways, predatory. It would be much better for this country if we offered some of those grants to other institutions, including non-academic organizations.

The only other thought I have is to pray for these satanists. Not only are they desperate for attention and more than a little crazy acting, they’ve got horrifically bad taste in art.

This is the ugly statue that the Satanic Temple wants to put on Oklahoma’s Capitol grounds.

That’s what happens when organized groups with an agenda do their lying thing and massage, twist and shave the meaning of a word that evokes powerful emotions into a meaningless, politicized hulk of its former self.

Words have power to evoke emotion and, with some words, outrage. Somewhere back in the first half of the twentieth century the big-time government monsters among us figured this out. Instead of accepting the plain meaning of plain words and changing their behavior, they set out, first to find substitute words that would blur the emotional response to their reactions, and then to batter the meaning of existing words into dust.

Thus, mass murder became a “final solution” which morphed into “ethnic cleansing,” while slavery and brainwashing were called “re-education.” Killing a baby was labeled a “choice” and then a “termination.” In this century, we have been treated to the spectacle of torture being called “enhanced interrogation.”

It’s all the same lie, the same manipulation, the same evil.

This manipulation of words is a separate and additional evil from the acts that it attempts to gloss over. It is an act of aggression, aimed, not at the victims of whatever it is trying to cover up, but at the sanity of society as a whole. If our words become politicized gibberish, our thinking becomes muddled and gibbering along with them.

The precise and honest use of language is the essential tool for precise and honest thinking. What the spinmeisters are doing by butchering our language is destroying the ability to think clearly of the citizens of our nation and our world.

Torture is the “final solution/re-education/choice” of the first decade of the 21st century. The deliberate destruction of our public sensitivity to torture through the use of lies and ridiculous parsing has led to the destruction of the meaning of the word itself. We have arrived at the it-depends-on-what-the-meaning-of-the-word-is- is point with torture.

We are faced with having to find a new word, even as the old one continues to be twisted, narrowed and broadened into utter meaninglessness.

What began as the American experiment in justifying torture to a population that had long prided itself on how well it treated its prisoners has morphed into the use of the word to label criminal malfeasance and taking positions on social issues that one finds disagreeable as torture.

Top that off with a conjoined United Nations attempt to claim that the Church’s admitted malfeasance in the area of child sexual abuse by priests is somehow or other torture, and you’ve got a word that no longer means much of anything.

Did the Catholic Church torture children by transferring sexual predator priests from one parish to another? No. The Church made a hash of its own moral authority and violated everything it stands for. The Church violated civil laws and its own teachings.

Is the Catholic Church the only institution with a history of allowing sexual predators to flourish in its midst? No. Virtually every institution that I know of has done this, which would make the UN’s new definition of torture ubiquitous rather than specific. What is different about the Church as opposed to other institutions is not a matter of law. It is a matter of outrage.

The Church betrayed Christ by transferring those priests. Every bishop who did this put clericalism and the good old boy buddy system ahead of his call to be a shepherd. Every bishop who did this betrayed his calling and his Lord; his Church and its people. These bishops behaved like corporate CEOs instead of priests, and that is the outrage and betrayal of their actions.

This was not torture. As evil as torture is, this was something far worse. It was a betrayal of Christ crucified among us by the men who have vowed to represent Him in this world.

This mis-use of the word torture to try to advance political and social agendas is a specific evil all of its own. Torture as a word is becoming another meaningless victim of our desire to to do evil and not be called evil for having done it.

Destroying a word as important as torture has ramifications that go far beyond linguistics. It means destroying an idea, maiming our moral understandings and weakening our ability to think rationally.

Torture is never acceptable. Torture is an intrinsic evil. I’m going to write about this in more detail, but the American experiment in thought control via the many lies and verbal shape shiftings surrounding our use of torture against prisoners since 9/11 is an evil that is separate and distinct from the evil of torture itself.

If we are outraged by the United Nations propaganda attack of trying to claim that the Catholic Church is torturing women by saying that abortion is a sin — and we should be outraged — we have only ourselves to blame. We, the United States of America, are the ones who have destroyed the meaning of the word in order to obfuscate our own actions.

This brainwashing of the public mind by insisting that torture means something other than what it means has side effects. Evil doesn’t just stake its claim in our societies and content itself with that one spot. It is a kudzu vine that takes root and grows outward, overtaking and smothering our moral sensibilities.

The evil of lying to and brainwashing the public to accept torture by narrowing the meaning of the word into preposterous meaningless has a flip side. We are seeing that flip side at the United Nations. If a word can be narrowed into meaninglessness, the same word can also be expanded into meaninglessness.

People with agendas can use the residual emotion the word still evokes. They use this residual emotion to justify political attacks by linking the word to actions where it does not apply and than claiming a faux moral outrage against organizations, actions and even ideas they dislike.

The Church did not commit torture when it betrayed Our Lord by transferring abusing priests. That is not what the word means. The claims that the Church is today committing torture against women by teaching that abortion is a grave sin, are too stupid to try to answer. It is obvious propaganda. It demands that the public acquiesce in its own brainwashing.

But the basis for making such claims lies in the torture to which the word torture has been subjected in recent years by the social and cultural brainwashers of our own government.

The great sin — and I use that moral word deliberately — is the lie and violation of human thought that is propaganda and brainwashing by the callous mis-labeling and mis-use of powerful words. This is done first to lie to whole populations of people about matters of terrible import, and then, in its ultimate application, to get them to lie to themselves about the same things.

This practice, which is widespread, involves holding down little girls while the women of a community hack away her external genitalia until they have cut all of it off. They then sew her vagina shut. They often also sew the labias shut, leaving only a small opening for urination.

Over time, the resulting scar tissue create in a permanent closure which must be forced open when the girl marries.

This terrible practice is almost universal in many parts of the Middle East, as well as Africa. it results in deaths from infection, blood loss and shock at the time of the mutilation, and deaths in childbirth later on. It also ensures horrifically painful sexual intercourse.

FGM is the ultimate chastity belt, designed to “prove” a girl’s “virtue” to her future husband. In areas where it is practiced, it is considered a necessary component of a girl’s marriageability.

Because people from the parts of the world where little girls are mutilated in this way are migrating in large numbers to the West, it is a growing problem here, as well. I passed a law banning Female Genital Mutilation in Oklahoma a few years back. The main obstacle to it was the ignorance of Okies about the practice and a disbelief that such a thing could happen here.

Added to that was the propensity to kill bills simply because they could by the paid staff which actually was making most of the decisions in both the Senate and the House. I almost lost the bill. The thing that allowed me to pass it was when the Oklahoma State Medical Association, with their massive lobbying clout, came on board and backed it.

Even though I was more than glad for the OSMA’s help, the fact that they could do this indicates the power of lobbies in our legislature, as well as the lack of concern for the content of the legislation itself. At that time, it was almost impossible to pass a bill without the imprimatur of a powerful lobbying organization.

I only mention that to make readers aware that we cannot sit back and feel superior about the barbarisms against women and girls in other parts of the world. Female Genital Mutilation is now happening in the West and we need to outlaw it and enforce those laws.

If it’s difficult to get through the blindness about FGM here in the West, it is even more difficult to step outside of cultural misogyny in the areas where FGM is considered a social requirement.

That’s why it’s gratifying to learn that the Catholic Church in Kenya has stepped out onto the cultural ice and taken a stand against FGM. No Christian, ever, should subject their daughter to this barbaric practice.

FGM is not required by any religion. Even though it is almost universally practiced in many Muslim countries, it is not a requirement of the Muslim faith.

In areas where it is the cultural and social norm, both Christians and Muslims “cut” their little girls and mutilate them this way.

This sort of mutilation of young girls is, of course, an extreme form of misogyny. It is also an expression of the grave moral injustice of the sexual double standard that has been used to terrorize and limit the lives of young girls in so many parts of the globe.

I am thrilled that the Catholic Church in Kenya has finally come out against FGM. I hope that all Christian leaders of every denomination in every part of the world will soon follow suit. Such actions are hundreds of years overdue. Silence about the barbarism of violence against women and girls is the single greatest blot on the history of Christianity.

Female Genital Mutilation is a deeply sinful cruelty against women and girls. No Christian should practice it, and no Christian should be silent about it.

The development office of the Catholic diocese of Maralal in Samburu has an active desk that is mandated to ensure that issues on gender based violence are addressed. The Church is on the frontline to fight the scourge of Female Genital Mutilation which is a harmful rite of passage, still practiced despite its negative side effects. It is one among the most common forms of gender based violence in Samburu.

Some 3 million women and girls face Female Genital Mutilation every year, while some 100 to 140 million have already undergone the practice. From a medical point of view it is unhealthy and causes adverse gynecological conditions. Some of the negative effects of the same include injury to adjacent tissues of the vagina, profuse bleeding, shock, acute urine retention, HIV/Aids infections and recurrent urinary tract Infections.

The diocese has facilitated awareness creation in Samburu County on the adverse effects of harmful cultural practices such as Female Genital Mutilation, early and forced marriages and sexual violence against women. The Justice and peace Department of the diocese deals with 4-5 cases of gender based violence every week.

The Catholic Church has a girl child education and Rescue Centre in Suguta Mar Mar Parish premises, located 42 kilometres away from Samburu County headquarters. The Centre accommodates girls who have escaped from their homes to find shelter there. The girls are victims of FGM, forced/early marriages and other forms of gender based violence. The sister in charge of the rescue centre Sister Fransisca Nzilani says “it is difficult to support these girls without funding. The girls depend on the rescue centre for most of their basic needs which include sanitary towels, education, stationery, food, clothing and shelter on a monthly basis”

Satanists aren’t trying to put monuments to their master in front of the Capitol Building in Washington.

No need.

Evidently, the people they want to go head to head with live in little ole Oklahoma.

Who would ever have thought that Oklahoma would be deemed important enough in the culture wars for this honor? I guess somebody who walks on the dark side thinks we need our little light covered up a bit.

Whatever their reasoning, members of the Satanic Temple announced a fund-raising drive to place a statue of Satan on the Oklahoma State Capitol grounds a few months ago. Their stated goal was to raise $20,000, but the times being what they are, $30,000 came rolling in for this worthy project.

Now, the instigators of this brain whatever have released photos of the statue paying homage to Satan that they want to place on Oklahoma’s capitol grounds.

It is, as we say in these parts, a dandy.

I’m not up on my satanism, but what I see is an obelisk-looking plank with a pentagram atop standing next to a statue of His Lordship, the Prince of the Dark Realm — or is that Baphomet?? This dude comes complete with a ram’s head with what looks like two horns and a tree growing out of the top of it. The ram’s head sits on the shoulders of a buff human body. Two 1950s-style children are staring worshipfully up at this lovable fellow while he holds one hand aloft in what appears to be a two-fingered version of the Boy Scout salute.

This deal is one fine piece of satanic kitsch.

Of course, the ACLU has our capitol grounds all tied up in a court challenge to a law we passed a few years back, placing a plaque with the Ten Commandments on it out there on the lawn. After all, plaques with the Ten Commandments are scary, right? I mean, it endangers all our freedoms to put something like that right out in public.

This ACLU zealotry for protecting innocents from the Ten Commandments is bad luck for the satanists. It appears they’re going to have a long wait before their artwork — or any new artwork — is even eligible to be considered for placement on the Capitol grounds. Then, if they don’t get what they want — and I can see a valid case for denying them based entirely on the artistic merits of this thing — I imagine they’ll head off to court.

In the meantime, I would like to raise one small question. Why would anybody worship Satan? Atheism, I can see. I mean, I don’t agree with it, but I can see where its adherents are coming from. But to worship an entity who is well known for creating every kind of misery there is, and who enjoys our pain and suffering and feeds off it, well, if you’ll pardon me for saying so, that’s not too bright.

It’s right up there with drinking arsenic because you like the taste of sweet things.

Be that as it may, we do have ourselves a bit of really creepy Satanic art to peruse while we’re waiting for the next call in this little doh-si-doh.

If the ACLU wins, and the Ten Commandments are banned from the Capitol lawn, then I suppose that leaves the Satanists with an expensive piece of ugly statuary to dispose of. If, on the other hand, the state wins (unlike others around the country, our attorney general actually defends state laws in court) then it’s up to the arts committee to work out for themselves if this thing has artistic merit, or if it’s just a laughable eyesore.

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I want Public Catholic to be a welcoming place. As my mother would say, be polite. What that means is use courtesy and civility. It also means do not attempt to hijack the board with your personal agendas. Public Catholic is a Catholic, Christian blog. I created it to empower Christians to stand for Jesus in today's world. Repetitive, harassing attacks against the faith, Jesus or the Church are not welcome here. Address others with respect and refer to public figures in the same way. No name calling. No cursing. No hitting. No spitting.